Good job on Cerrillos Road, new tunnel

Irecently talked with a Santa Fe resident who decried the practically yearly — seemingly continuous — road work limiting the flow of traffic on Cerrillos Road. I wondered about two aspects of this. First, was the road work necessary? Second, how seriously was traffic delayed? Would it be worth the newly pristine roadway?

Last summer, Cerrillos Road was torn up to improve flood management and once and for all facilitate the common driver’s quest down the ever-improving, former “strip” in Santa Fe. The inconvenience of the construction, from St. Michael’s Drive to Camino Carlos Rey, was there but not unacceptable or intolerable. At the makeshift, strung-up red lights, you would see the continuing purposefulness of the road workers.

Cerrillos Road, about 30 years ago, was stricken with a pop-urban reputation as always snarled and slow. (New Mexicans who had ridden Route 66 through Tucumcari got a more Southwestern highway feel.) Some city critics belabor this reputation, now certainly undeserved, even so during this construction and much less so since its completion. The rightof-way was widened, right-turn lanes created and intersections better regulated. Cerrillos Road is now all three — an urban strip of motels and chain restaurants, an inviting thruway to the evergrowing south side, and providing easier access to Interstate 25.

A most incredible, even wondrous, road project is being carried out just outside downtown, where a tunnel is being dug under St. Francis Drive, just north of the Cerrillos Road intersection, to relieve the pedestrian and biker of the delay and danger associated with crossing on the surface. Traffic at the intersection was, at the height of the work, uninterrupted from 6 a.m. to about 8 p.m. I traversed it, northbound, nightly at about 8:30 p.m., with a passing view of a road project so well-engineered that every piece of heavy equipment was in use or at the ready, the groups of hard hats were clearly talking about the job, and a crew was running to place lights, barriers and signage as required.

Bright light from the three road work tower light units, like stadium lights, illuminated work areas on either side of the road. There appeared the steady and assuredly relentless commitment of men to the job and the running of their machines. See the overarching then descending clawing bucket of the excavator — up again towering, 60-foot dinosaur battling left and right, the crushing roars of its independent tank-like tracks backing and filling. Hear the endless rapping of the trailer-sized Ingersoll Rand gas generator.

I felt the mechanical rectitude of this work, the fact that it was so efficiently being done at night at a major intersection as I nightly observed. Satisfied just for then was my curiosity, common to man and boy, about the earth-moving machine and how it must be to operate.

The tunnel is a positive improvement, and the price is reasonable. It is intensely about the people who are most intimately enjoying Santa Fe and not, thank goodness, an instant tourist attraction. Many of us coming down Cerrillos Road have the seen the official road sign, a project of the National League of Cities, across from the School for the Deaf: “Welcome. We are building an inclusive community.” Here, if by inclusive is meant, “We do good for the community first so come on in,” then this investment is a smart one. The tunnel is near completion. The city engineers did well in their choice of improvements and choice of contractors.